September 2005

Join Us at the October Events: The Hunger Project and the MDGs

 

This month: Millennium Summit +5. Leaders from 189 nations will meet in New York to align on plans to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Next month: The Hunger Project and the MDGs – a Global Citizen’s Briefing. On October 22-23, more than 1200 Hunger Project investors and activists from 23 countries will meet at the New York Hilton Hotel for our annual fall events.

   The MDGs are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions – income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and discrimination – while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability.

You will want to be at this year’s events! As Joan Holmes said recently, “For the first time in human history, our global community of nations is committed to a unified plan of action to solve the basic issues of humankind. The world has never before had a framework like the MDGs. The MDG framework is what the planet is going to use for at least the next 10 years. And, it is what every individual on the planet needs to know in order to participate potently as a global citizen.”

 

October 22-23, 2005:

Being with Our Global Family

GLOBAL ACTIVISTS MEETING
Saturday 11am–12:30pm
 

Hunger Project investor/activists from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America will meet to empower our fundraising through the weekend and ensure that the events launch us powerfully in our fundraising work for the rest of the year. These are the volunteer leaders who have mobilized more than 1,000 others to attend the event.

POLICY FORUM ON THE MDGS
Saturday 2–4:30pm

In the afternoon Policy Forum chaired by Joan Holmes, approximately 500 of us will hear from international experts for an indepth look at the vital importance of the MDGS in Latin America, South Asia and Africa, and the challenges their regions must face to achieve them. 

HUNGER PROJECT 101
Sunday 11–12:30pm

 The fall events are a powerful opportunity to introduce your friends to The Hunger Project. At mid-day on Sunday there will be a special opportunity for those new to The Hunger Project to learn everything they would need to know to choose to participate. 

“GLOBAL EVERYONE MEETING”
Sunday 2–4:30pm

On Sunday, we meet together more informally with the remarkable women and men at the front lines of our work in Africa, Asia and Latin America. This is also an opportunity to interact with fellow investors from across Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim. We come together as one global family, with a shared vision, a shared commitment, and shared strategies for achieving a future for humanity free from hunger and abject poverty. You will not want to miss this! 
 

GALA RECEPTION AND DINNER Saturday 6:30pm

At the evening black-tie event, we will have the opportunity to hear from Joan Holmes and leaders of our strategies in Africa, South Asia and Latin America. The speakers will powerfully present The Hunger Project’s groundbreaking contributions to the achievement of the MDGs. The evening will conclude with great music from Africa that expresses the spirit and dynamism of the people of that continent. Tickets for the Gala Reception and Dinner are $250, and are available at www.thp.org or by calling your nearest Hunger Project office.

Millennium Project Director Visits Epicenter

On July 10, The Hunger Project’s Nsuta-Aweregya Epicenter in Ghana hosted Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General. Kofi Annan. Prof. Sachs visited this Hunger Project program at the special invitation of Joan Holmes.

Like all 74 Hunger Project epicenters across Africa, the Nsuta-Aweregya Epicenter is an expression of The Hunger Project’s strategy that mobilizes and empowers local people to achieve the MDGs in their areas. Over the past four years, the Nsuta-Aweregya Epicenter has mobilized 5,000 people from 8 surrounding villages.

Equal numbers of women and men serve on the leadership teams responsible for managing each activity at the epicenter. When the leaders were asked to stand up, Prof. Sachs was surprised and pleased by the large numbers of women in leadership positions.

He peppered the epicenter leaders with detailed questions on issues of direct Millennium Project head visits Epicenter relevance to achieving the Millennium Development Goals, including their child nutrition program, their effectiveness in using compost as organic fertilizer, and their strategies to improve food production and transport their crops to market. He visited their microcredit program, food bank and health center. Prof. Sachs told the assembled crowd that he was very impressed with everything he had seen and is confident that the people of the epicenter will achieve their vision of ending hunger and poverty by 2010.